4 min readJammuJul 23, 2026 10:01 PM IST
Since Sunday, Mohammad Latief has been wading through the rubble of the ‘Taj Mahal’ – the name locals gave his five-storeyed palatial house on the foothills of the Pir Panjal in Jammu’s Poonch district. All that remains of the painstakingly built house is its steel frame. Yet it is not this that Latief mourns — it’s the loss of his family: his wife, daughter, three sons and a toddler grandson.
The 59-year-old’s family were buried under a landslide that hit his house in the early hours of July 19, triggered by the relentless downpour that has assailed the Union Territory since July 19. The death toll in the landslides and floods in the region currently stands at 28, 22 of them from Poonch alone.
Eight people were buried under the landslide that hit Latief’s house, six of them his family: his wife Noor Safia, 45, daughter Khalda Kousar, 25, sons Sajad Ahmed, 16, Haq Nawaz, 10, and Shah Nawaz, 10, and grandson Sufian, 1. The other two victims were relatives — Bano Bi, 60, and her grandson Mohammad Akram, 7.
Only the bodies of Noor Safia, Bano Bi and Akram have been found, and the search continues for the rest.
“My family and the house are gone. Allah, who gave them to me, took them back and I accept his will,” he says.
Latief, who worked in Saudi Arabia and was home on six months’ leave, woke up to the deep rumbling of thunder at 3 am on July 19 and headed outside to move his vehicle, parked near a local stream down the hill, to a safer location.
As he was outside, his wife called to ask him to hurry back because it was raining heavily. That was the last time he heard her voice.
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“When he returned, large boulders and mud marked the place where his home stood,” his nephew Zahoor Ahmad, a social activist, says.
Latief, who began working in Saudi Arabia in 1998, built the house over seven years, making sure he got the best of everything, right down to the bathroom fittings. “Even taps fitted in the bathrooms and kitchen were bought from abroad,” says his nephew Zahoor.
Jammu and Kashmir has been seeing relentless rain and landslides since Sunday, prompting the government to suspend traffic on highways. Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Choudhary and National Conference MP Mian Altaf had a close call on July 22 when a landslide nearly hit the vehicle they were travelling in to visit Rajouri and Poonch districts to oversee rescue operations.
The rain has also prompted the government to suspend the ongoing Amarnath Yatra pilgrimage.
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Back in Poonch, Latief is desperate to find the remains of his family. His house is gone, and all that remains of his family are now his daughter Farida Kousar, married and living in Murrah, and his son Sarfaraz, an 18-year-old studying in Jammu.
“Now let me make an effort to find out if there are any survivors under the debris,” he says.